


Notable Burgundy Trolls

by Looking4AGoodTime8



Category: Hiveswap, Homestuck
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-02
Updated: 2020-03-16
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:00:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 9,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21647953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Looking4AGoodTime8/pseuds/Looking4AGoodTime8
Summary: Notable figures from the Burgundy caste throughout history. You should feel special, for I’m including figures from -before- the Sea-Dweller conflict. Aren’t I just a gracious host?
Comments: 5
Kudos: 19





	1. Marcel Arkney, The Builder

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to throw some ideas for notable historical figures my way.

He who built the first Temple.

Though it wasn’t a new idea to gather the remains of certain adventurers and keep them on your person for various bits of help and advice, marcel took took this a step further with the discovery that so long as you had a small piece of the individual you were trying to contact, you could summon an iteration of them. Knowing this, he would grind their bones to dust and put them in small glass vials or leather pouches with the dust of other explorers. Because he would grind their bones to dust, he could fit hundreds of adventurers in the various pouches and pockets of his single bandolier.

And because he would only use a pinch of the bone dust, he could make hundreds of copies of the same pouch and share them with other adventurers (depending on the amount of a corpse he had available). These pouches would help these explorers of the early Burgundy caste travel farther and safer than ever before. They could navigate the dangerous (more dangerous than normal for Alternian standards) areas, avoid the poisonous plants that were the demise of other hungry explorers, and if they were in a pinch, they had a veritable army of spirits to call upon to defend themselves.

This was still that same technique used by earlier explorers, but never before had so much knowledge been available to them at once. As Marcel shared this revolutionary new method of necromancy, more and more of the surface was being mapped and more information was gleaned from the spirits of passed trolls. The ultimate culmination of this technique would be the Temples.

By the time that Marcel was a young troll, contact had been made with the Indigo Mountain Lords, so when he reached maturity, such things as metal tools and stone construction materials were already being used by the majority of trolls to make their dwellings. Stone especially came in great supply when the Indigo Masons founded Quarries outside of their mountains. This material proved to be a durable, reliable, and relatively plentiful source for Marcel’s grand idea (which would be the Temple in case you have forgotten).

A Temple is, for lack of a better phrase, a mass grave. Although the later versions of the Temple were more akin to large crypts and tombs, the earliest versions of the Temple were made with a single goal in mind: to prepare the new and young adventurers for the perils of Alternia’s surface. In these temples, were the remains of every adventurer, explorer, and traveler that the Burgundy caste could find. All so that those who came after would be better prepared for life on the surface. 

As mentioned before, these Temples were the first thing that the surface dwellers had in place of schools and academies. These are the places that taught navigation, survival, how to defend oneself on the surface, etc. Later on, other skills started being taught from the spirits of trolls from other castes. Woodworking and agriculture from the Bronze Bloods, stonemasonry and metallurgy from the ghosts of Indigo Mountain Lords, healing and first aid from passed Jade Bloods. All these things and more were available to be taught to trolls en masse for generations after Marcel’s passing, where he as a spirit himself would teach the ins and outs of Necromancy to future Burgundy trolls.

Eventually, these temples would become so large that one of them would have to be dedicated to certain disciplines. So the remains of the masters of metallurgy, stonemasonry, architecture, and jewel crafting would be moved to the mountain ranges of the Indigo Mountain Lords, Temples that were focused towards agriculture, woodworking and trade would be founded by farms or on popular trade routes, Temples of healing were made in the Brooding Caverns by the Jade Bloods. You get the idea.

The effectiveness of these Temples would only be compounded by the written language developed by the Teal Bloods. When they would transcribe the lessons of the old masters and bring them beyond the temples into great libraries and other institutions for learning.

Such a tragedy that all that knowledge would be lost when the Sea-Dwellers destroyed them, along with the name and story of the troll who begotten it.


	2. Hokala Nolafa, The Strength of the Dead

She who could command Death itself.

When I first bestowed the ability to call upon the dead to the Burgundy trolls, I did not expect the level to which they would have brought their newfound abilities. I expected them to only be able to use it for communication, for gathering knowledge, or even as an early warning method or scouting tool.

I underestimated their creativity.

The one who shattered my expectations to what a Necromancer could do was one Hokala Nolafa, and she didn’t even do it on purpose. What had happened was the young Hokala, barely even four and a half sweeps old at the time, got separated from the Caravan with which she was traveling and her Lusus after a bandit raid. Lost and alone in the wilderness, she had to find her way to the new settlement that was her Caravan’s destination.

Her first step was try to find and reconnect with other survivors from the raid. After finding her way to the site of the attack, she discovered there were no other survivors, and that the bandits didn’t leave the wreckage yet. So when she stumbled through the brush while the bandits were rummaging through the ruined caravan for loot, you would expect that they would have killed her and finished their looting. But as they moved in to kill Hokala, something strange happened. In a moment of primal panic, she screamed, threw up her hands, and the bandit closest to her burst into pile of shredded flesh and shattered bone. 

To say the other bandits were shocked would be an understatement, and the level of their surprise came nowhere near to that of my own. Reviewing the scene, I was able to see how, in her desperation, Hokala seized the lingering spirits of those who were in the caravan and directed them towards her assailants. And when those ghosts impacted the bandits, they tore into them with a vigor that would have been unmatched by their living selves.

Several bloody moments later, when the bandits that didn’t immediately flee from the child were all dead, Hokala looked upon the carnage she wrought and the ghosts of her dead friends that she used to do it, numbly started to collect pieces of her friends, and turned to walk away. Though she continued walking for six nights through the Alternian wilderness towards the settlement that was her caravan’s original destination, I doubt she remembers much of it.

But I do.

I remember her trudging through the rugged terrain seemingly in a daze as other bandits and wildlife would try their hand at killing (or worse) the child only to meet the same fate as those first few bandits she killed. Eventually, the blood and gore from her encounters clung to Hokala in such a thick and dense covering, that the sight and smell of her started to deter other would-be assailants who would either run away or continue to lay in hiding and let her pass them by.

Eventually, the caravan did reach the settlement, but it was in the makeshift pack of the last survivor. 

The Necromancers already at the settlement were at first surprised and relieved that someone from the caravan survived (with how delayed the caravan was, it was suspected that the worst had happened and that everyone was dead), then when they found out how she survived.... they were at first mortified.... then curious. After speaking with the child, and interrogating the ghosts she used, they were able to discern how she was able to do what she did. And after she recovered from her ordeal, she was able to meditate with the older necromancers and learn from them about the art of calling to the dead.

In learning with them things that other trolls her age wouldn’t until much later in life, Hokala was able to consistently replicate her feat by destroying different targets with spirits she summoned. After several sweeps of training, not only was offensive Necromancy becoming more widespread, but Hokala was able to take her abilities a step further. By taking the spirits of dead trolls into her own being, she was able to add their physical strengths to her own body (to a degree).

If it weren’t for this offensive branch of Necromancy that Hokala discovered, the Sea-Dweller Conflict would have been over much sooner.


	3. Frokod Gatran, The Wall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He who held the line on Rakaad IV

Being a Burgundy Blood, the lowest caste in the Hemospectrum, means that you will have an average combat life expectancy of a few hours at most, even when working together with your comrades. Some of the more hardy/lucky/skilled soldiers can last around a few days worth of active combat before dying or being promoted. 

Being a Rust Blood also means that you almost never get recognized (even posthumously) for any accomplishment you might achieve.

Frokad Gatran was awarded with the Twin Moons of Alternia, the highest Medal of Honor that any troll lesser than a Sea Dweller could ever dream of earning, and made a an Immortal Threshicutioner of Her Imperious Condescension.

He did this by holding the line in the Trakad pass in the Veravum Mountain Range on Rakaad IV for a solid month.... alone.

Rakaad IV is a terrestrial planet with a single moon, not much water on it, mostly mountains, forests, and rivers. The largest single body of water would be about the size of lake Victoria on Earth. The inhabitants of this world could best be described as large, bipedal, four-armed bears. By the time that the Empire found them, they were already colonizing different parts of their solar system. Their weaponry focused around using magnets to propel chunks of metal at ridiculously high speeds.

By the time that Frokod made his famed stand, the war to subjugate this civilization had reached its eighth year. He was part of the original invasion in the war and had fought in every major battle since. Also by this time, the main force of the Rakaadians was whittled down to one last defensive formation around the planet’s capital city of Kavutop.

That was what the intelligence gathered by the Olive Bloods pointed at anyway.

In short, the plan was to put an end to this war once and for all by throwing a full throttle assault against this city with everything that the Alternians could muster. Only the barest of skeleton crews would be left behind in the various fortresses and bases that were erected about the surface of Rakaad IV. Frokod was stationed at a checkpoint near the Troll’s first base set in the Veravum Mountain range while the main city was besieged, one of only a handful of other Rust Bloods to keep the place neat and tidy until the Highbloods returned.

As you can guess, this did not happen. For while the Alternian war machine is quite quick and efficient for its size, the sheer logistics of it made it so that the siege of Kovutop wouldn’t happen for weeks. And when the Trolls broke through the city gates, the entire city was nearly deserted. There was no one in the city. No soldiers, no city workers, No civilians. Not a single soul was in Kovutop. Slowly they made their way through all the streets and avenues, sweeping the sights of their weapons from side to side, looking for any sight of hostiles. Only to find none. The residential buildings were deserted, schools, libraries, banks, businesses, everything was abandoned. But then they came to the Armory. Unlike the rest of Kovutop (which was merely abandoned), the Armory was completely picked clean. Every rifle, bullet, knife, explosive, and even every shovel was gone. 

The only thing they found in it was a giant hole in the floor that lead through the sewers and into the underground cave systems beneath the city. Kovutop was completely surrounded for weeks with no air traffic seen from outside the walls, so it was assumed that since the city was empty, this was where the Rakaadians ran off to. So, predictably, the Trolls all started carefully piling into the hole to chase after their prey. They searched everywhere for anything that could hint at Rakaadian activity, which they found everywhere; a bit of fur here, a footprint there. In order to leave no stone left unturned, every nook and cranny would be search by the trolls. 

And when all those Trolls were packed into that city like sardines in a can looking for something to shoot at, hidden explosive charges set off a chain reaction that lead to a mass cave-in of Kovutop and the surrounding area. More than 90% of the Alternian military presence planetside was in or near Kovutop when the cave-in happened, and more than 80% of that were either dead or rendered unfit for combat. 

Frokod was unaware of this gambit happening at the capital city, he had other things to worry about. Namely the armed and angry Rakaadians pouring out of the caves surrounding his little outpost. The Rakaadians knew where the main base of operations was and how to get there, they knew that with the number of Trolls outside their walls, there had to be very few Trolls elsewhere. And they knew that there would be no way to really win this war at this point, so the best thing they could do would be as big a thorn in the Alternian ass as they could be. So while the Trolls were busy preparing to storm the city, the Rakaadians were gathering all the military hardware they could, sending it through the tunnels they dug into the underground cave systems and rigging the city and the tunnels below to blow and collapse.

And while the Alternians were making their way through the city and setting off the trap, the Rakaadians were already well on their way towards the Alternian base. All that stood between them and an Alternian military base with all different kinds of technological goodies like weapons, armor, and supplies, was a single squad of Burgundy Bloods. Frokod was not stupid, while gathering as many weapons as he could with his few comrades and wielding them with his Telekinesis, he fought as many of the enemies as he could before withdrawing from the fight to the main fortress. 

So there he was, his comrades slain in the retreat, locked in an empty fortress with all the weapons and munitions he could ask for, which was quickly being surrounded outside. The automated perimeter defenses would buy him some time, but not much. At most he had a few hours to send a message to anyone who could hear, and prepare himself to try and hold out for reinforcements.

The next month was quite astonishing, if I do say so myself. Because not only was Frokod a gifted Telekinetic, he was also a powerful Necromancer. Something quite rare for one of his caste. Using both in tandem, he started the month long slog with a stockpile of heavy weaponry that he wielded with his telekinesis, and the ghosts of his recently fallen comrades. And as he mowed down the Rakaadians with his weapons along with the perimeter defenses, he was able to push them back to a small pass in the mountains from whence they were coming. And as they started falling, he used their ghosts to reap a bloody harvest upon the rest. 

On and on this went: the Rakaadians would launch an attack, Frokod would use the heavy weaponry to mow them down from cover and use their ghosts against them. Eventually the guns ran out of ammo, so he resorted to using large swords and arrows from the Indigo Ordinance cache, and when the arrows ran out and the blades dulled from use, he used the boulders which he used for cover to smash his enemies. And when the boulders were ground to nothing but pebbles, he used those pebbles along with ripping the splintered bones from the corpses of his enemies and using them as a storm of shrapnel to shred the Rakaadians. All the while, he was tearing the souls from his dead enemies and sending them to attack the Rakaadians as quickly as he could.

I doubt that even my Handmaid could’ve performed such a feat. She is quite capable of ridiculous levels of violence, but to do what Frokod did without the power of the Green Sun.... I was honestly impressed. Frokod kept this up long enough for the Alternian ships patrolling the system to recover survivors from the catastrophe of Kovutop, recieve the distress beacon from the Veravum fortress, and however long it took to muster the troops necessary to crush the final remnants of the Rakaadian military. Which, after all was said and done, took a little over a month.

Needless to say that the Highbloods were beyond impressed by Frokod. When the reinforcements arrived to steamroll what little of the Rakaadians remained, they found Frokod surrounded by broken equipment and bodies. He was missing an arm and both his legs, was bleeding out of his eyes and nose from telekinetic exertion, and suffering from severe dehydration and exhaustion. The Violet Highbloods overseeing the invasion were in awe of this display of power from one so low on the Hemospectrum. And after Frokod’s recovery (which took almost an entire sweep), he was awarded the Twin Moons of Alternia. A Medal of Honor never before presented to anyone below Teal.

Not only that, Her Imperious Condescension was so impressed, that he was offered to become one of her Immortal Threshicutioners. The personal army composed of the very best Trolls that the species had to offer, each of them were granted the honor of partaking in communion of Her Imperious Condescension’s blood, thus making their lifespans match her own.

He was by Her Imperious Condescension’s side when Gl’bgolyb released the Vast Glub and killed every remaining Troll on Alternia and in space.

Except for my Handmaid and Her Imperious Condescension, of course.


	4. Druina Gotema, The Ruiner

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She who raised an army to crush a world.

Necromancy is not always an unnatural phenomenon like it is with the Burgundy caste. You have to remember, when I granted them that ability to the Burgundy Caste, it was with science so advanced that it might as well be magic. But there are other races that can use Necromancy (along with other branches of “Magic”). 

The Ralarthi are an example of this. 

You see, Gl’bgolyb was not the only Horror Terror of the Furthest Ring to exist in the universe. There was another one that found its way into Reality. I believe his name was Bez’gluiz? Whatever he came into Reality to to do, he decided to take an eons long nap in the crust of a planet called Ralarth. During these eons, the latent.... Otherness? Yes, let’s go with that. The energies of Otherness that permeates the being of Horror Terrors of the Furthest Ring comes off of them like a radiation. This radiation caused some interesting mutations in the planetary population.

Namely, you guessed it, the ability of Necromancy. Spending eons evolving in the radiation of a Horror Terror of the Furthest Ring has given them a latent, natural knack for Necromancy. As you can imagine, the Ralarthi culture was heavily centered around the dead and their spirits. They didn’t have graves, they had special places outside of their towns and cities where they would leave the bodies to the elements to decompose. These places were creatively called Deadlands 

Deadlands varied from place to place. Taking the form of deserts, forests, mountain tops, tundras. You know, wild places. But the thing that made these Deadlands special, is that they manifested some features of Bez’gluiz. One place would have giant tentacles of living stone growing from the ground, another would have a giant toothed pit where the bodies would be thrown.... Bez’gluiz’s presence mutated more than just the local species.

The point is, these were places that belonged to the dead. The only reason the living were allowed passage into the Deadlands by the spirits guarding them, was to separate the spirit from the corpse. This way, the spirit is able to wonder the land for eternity, guiding those who still live.

Moving on to the Ralarthi themselves.

When the Empire found them, they weren’t space fairing at all. They were post-industrial, but the closest thing they had to spaceflight were propeller bi-wing aero planes. Similar to those found in Earth’s First World War. Despite their vast technological differences, the Ralarthi were able to put up quite a fight. This was, in part, due to the arrogance of the Violet Bloods in charge of that invasion, thinking that because of their superior technology, they would have the planet conquered in less than a sweep with naught but a few contingents of Rust bloods. The main reason they put up such a fight is that they were able to call upon their dead as well. This planet being their home planet, the Ralarthi had hundreds of generations of dead to call upon.

And call upon them they did. For when the Ralarthi saw their enemy who came from beyond the stars to conquer them, they summoned entire armies of green-tinted spirits from the Deadlands of their world to deal with them. And much like what the Burgundy caste is able to do, the Ralarthi were able to cast these armies in a tide of dead that would wash over Alternian positions like a flood, washing away all resistance in an instant. 

Druina Gotema was an island in the middle of this flood. While the Violet Commanders watched in awe at the spectacle below them from orbit, believing all the forces planet-side to be lost. Druina was able to withstand the tide of spirits as they flowed around her and make her way to a Deadland. Here she was able to find a reprieve.... and an interesting discovery. While the Ralarthi were able to call the dead without having a fragment of their remains (because the Ralarthi spirits voluntarily aided their living), Druina discovered that if she possessed a fragment of a Ralarthi corpse, she could....override.... the commands given to it by a Ralarthi Necromancer.

And once the connection was severed from a Ralarthi Necromancer, the Ralarthi spirit would follow Druina regardless of weather or not she held a piece of them. And in the Deadland that Druina found herself, the soil itself was steeped in the bone-dust, decomposed flesh, and other such leftovers of millennia-old dead. Using this knowledge to her advantage, she wandered the Deadland that encompassed this considerably large area. She wandered around the area gathering untold numbers of ghosts and spirits for months while the Violet Bloods in orbit were sending requests for a proper invasion force to take the planet. 

By the time she was ready to strike back, she had a personal army that numbered in the millions. While this was beyond a considerable force for any single Necromancer to wield, it would not be enough to take (and more importantly keep) any particularly large area of terrain. 

She needed more.

And thanks to a map application in the gauntlet of her standard issue armor (which also doubled as a watch/timer, and a communications device), she was able to pick out other Deadlands across the surface of Ralarth and travel to them. While the Ralarthi were busy hunting down the last pockets of the Alternian invaders, Druina went from Deadland to Deadland, raising untold millions of spirits who (when severed from the call of their own people) would float along with Druina and be forced to keep her safe in her travels. By the time that the Ralarthi noticed that something was amiss (what with all of their weaponized ancestors disappearing and becoming seemingly unwilling to answer their calls), Druina had already plundered all of the Deadlands on half a continent of their spirits.

And with this force of thousands of millions of dead at her beck and call, she gave a single command:

Destroy.

And destroy they did. For if the previous engagements with Ralarthi Spirits could be described as a tide, then what Druina did could be described as The Biblical Flood. This spectacle of ruin was witnessed by all the newly arrived Alternians who were just about to make landfall. At first, they thought that this was another attack by the Ralarthi, but it was noticed that on the top of the tallest mountain on one of the continents stood a lone Troll. Watching as the Flood of Dead reaches all the way to the horizon and beyond. 

For days, the fleet watched as the Ralarthi were butchered by the very dead that they used against the Alternian invaders. By the end of it, more than 70% of the population of the planet joined the ranks of Druina’s Dead, the rest were begging for mercy from the Alternian fleet that finally landed. Mercy was granted by contacting Druina and telling her to stand down and to report to the Violet Bloods in charge. It was here that she was granted a recommendation for Governance of the planet alongside the Violet Bloods. Her presence alone was enough to keep resistance of any kind out of the mind of the Ralarthi for decades. And when she died, other Necromancers were able to call her spirit back to keep the population in check. For Druina’s name was Fear itself to the Ralarthi.

When Gl’Bgolyb sounded the Vast Glub, the Ralarthi kept working their stations for days afterwards, afraid that all the Trolls dropping dead around them was a ploy. And when they found that they were finally free, the celebration lasted for years. Last time i cared enough to check, they were colonizing and terraforming several different planets in their solar system using reverse-engineered Alternian technology.


	5. Oraora Mudamu, the TK Terror

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He who carried the First Victory of the Sea Dweller Conflict.

The Sea Dweller Conflict was a long and bloody war that claimed the lives of hundreds of millions of trolls over the course of centuries. To say that I am spoiled for choice when the subject of notable warriors, tacticians, and other such individuals that make up a war is broached is certainly a gross understatement. But I will do my best to pick out the truly awesome figures who were forged in the furnace of war.

One such individual was Oraora Mudamu. By the time he pupated, the war had already been in full swing for a fair amount of time; about 87 sweeps to be precise. What set him apart from his fellows in his young age was his prominent talent for Telekinesis. When he was just 6 sweeps old, his power was on par with many Burgundy soldiers fighting on the frontlines against the Sea Dwellers. One of the Jades tasked with Mothering his Brood saw this and asked a number of Templars in the Temples of War to take him in early and teach him to control his power. In less than a sweep, he was able to go toe to toe with any of his Temple trainers. His technique consisted of forming countless numbers of fists with his telekinesis and rapidly striking his enemies. What his technique lacked in subtlety or finesse, was more than made up for by its sheer power.

And he was only ever getting stronger. Day by day, sweep by sweep, his telekinetic power would begin matching that of the Ψiionic Gold Bloods. When he was a full 10 sweeps old, he was old enough to join the Standard Guard and fight against the Sea Dwellers, who had made terrifying headway in their conquests. But soon, they would lose much of their progress.

The landmass on which Oraora grew up was having an especially hard time of fighting off the Sea Dwellers due to the lack (although not the total absence) of such natural barriers as mountain ranges, deserts, jungles, or other such difficult terrain. It is because of this relative lack of danger that most of this landmass was meant to be used for agriculture. But it allowed the Sea Dwellers to practically steamroll most of the eastern portion of it. Were it not for the mountain range that almost bisected the continent down the middle, the Sea Dwellers would have had the entire landmass under their moist thumbs in less than a century. This particular mountain range just so happened to be the most inhospitable, cold, windswept mountain range on the planet. It was (and still is) home to the highest mountains, the richest ore veins, and the largest Indigo Fortress that has or ever will be. 

This is the Sagimino Mountain Range, and the only point that was not reached by it was a stretch of tundra at the northern end. It is this little pass flanked by mountains on the southern side and frozen glaciers four miles to the north that is relentlessly defended by the Standard Guard. For if this pass were to fall, the Sea Dwellers would take the rest of the continent and cut off the much needed food supply to many other war fronts. This is the Sagimino Gap, and it is where Oraora specifically requested to be stationed when he passed the rigorous physical conditioning required of those who join the Standard Guard.

If you wish to know the extent to which the Land Dwellers defended this gap, think of the Maginot Line compressed into a stretch of land four miles wide and 13 miles long. Bunkers, land mines, dangerous vegetation, mannequins that are dressed in a disgustingly awful fashion sense, you name something that could hinder a Sea Dweller approach, they had it. “But why didn’t the Sea Dwellers go around to the other side of the continent and attack from there?” You might ask. The answer would be “There’s a giant fuckoff desert that lines the western coast that would have dried out the Sea Dwellers before they crossed half of it.” Combine that with the massive seaside cannons made by the Indigo Trolls that would have harried them the entire way around and the fact that they wouldn’t have the element of surprise, it would just be easier to hammer the weakest point in the Land Dweller defense.

Which is exactly what they did for many sweeps, hoping for a lucky break. Which came in the form of the biggest assault from the Sea Dwellers ever seen since the start of the war. A force with millions of Sea Dweller troops amassing all throughout the eastern side of the continent and slowly converging on the Sagimino Gap. Of course, with enemy movement in these numbers, several scouts were able to notify the Land Dweller officials of the impending attack weeks ahead of time. Though with a force of this size, it would be extremely difficult to repel it even with the advanced warning. 

But none the less, they sent every reserve troop to the Sagimino gap to whether the siege. Including the fresh recruits. Though, they would be stationed in the back while the hardened veterans would bear the brunt of the attack. Because if the Sea Dwellers penetrated far enough to reach the final stretch of the Sagimino Gap, then the Land Dwellers would have already lost. Which the Sea Dwellers did.... but the Land Dwellers didn’t lose. The battle, anyway. They still obviously lost the war.

Now, for the siege itself. First contact was made when Standard Guard Sharpshooters started firing off rounds at the first Sea Dwellers to come into range. And when they got closer, the machine gun emplacements and pillboxes. And closer still they came, until they were sufficiently slowed by the onslaught of every pistol, rifle, machine gun, and cannon that had them in range. And when they were within spitting distance, the Standard Guard personnel forgone their firearms and engaged in melee.Not to say the Sea Dwellers were just merrily strolling into a wall of white-hot lead and blades, they obviously had protection going in. Large interlocking shields with barely any gap between them, armor that would have kept them alive for a little while in the storm of bullets that was berating them, and, of course, directed energy weapons to give a response to the punishing hail of fire coming their way. Despite everything, for every Sea Dweller that was felled, no less than a dozen Land Dwellers would perish. 

This ratio would only barely be improved for the Land Dwellers when the Sea Dwellers broke through the first line and into the Sagimino Gap proper. Here is where they encountered the land mines, and other hindrances that would slow the Sea Dweller advance. Not only would they have to contend with the constant gunfire and incessant Land Dwellers attempting to hack at them with anything sufficiently sharp within arms reach, but they would have to whether land mines exploding every three feet, spear vines darting out of the tall grass and impaling them, needle shrubs bursting into a hail of poisonous thorns that would weave their way through the minuscule gaps in their armor, and, arguably the worst of all, mannequins that were dressed in garish outfits that went out of style decades ago that would have many a Sea Dweller retching on the ground. On and on this went for months, but slowly and surely, the Sea Dwellers kept gaining ground. Until, at last, they were within sight of the last defensive line of the Sagimino Gap. Within sight of Oraora Mudamu.

You must understand how demoralizing this was for those young trolls, fresh from the Temples of War, to see some of the best warriors in the land be swept aside oh so cruelly by these unrelenting Finheads. To believe that the rest of the continent behind them was good as dead in the face of such a mighty force. But not Oraora. Oh no, he was not taken by the overwhelming atmosphere of despair and resignation to which his fellows had succumbed.... he was angry. To see those Waders strutting over the corpses of his comrades seemingly without a care in the world. He was downright enraged. His teachers in the Temples of War had warned him about letting his temper get ahold of him. Whenever one of his sparring partners bloodied his nose or broke his teeth, he would come back at them with twice the ferocity as before. The Templars said that though this could be an advantage to him, he must not completely lose himself to his passion. 

But when one is witness to such devastation as this, what else could one such as Oraora do? Why, throw your weapon to the side, dig your telekinetic fists into the ground, and use them to propel yourself at ridiculous speeds towards the frontline of the enemy of course. He rocketed himself straight towards the highest ranking Wet Boi he could see and set upon him with a fury that could rival a Purple MadLad. Now, while a Sea Dweller’s armor is more than capable of withstanding sustained fire for a relatively long period of time, it could still be caved in with enough force. And when exposed to the tender affections of Oraora’s telekinesis, they crumpled as easily as a can of soda in a human child’s hand. The action of blinking across a half mile of open terrain and crushing a Sea Dweller field commander in less than a minute was quite shocking for both friend and foe. And things only got better from there.

Oraora kept up his momentum and plowed through the first line of Sea Dwellers and continued to tear his way through the rest of their forces. No one could stop him, anything that got in his way was ground to dust beneath the unrelenting strikes of his telekinesis. Until he finally reached that back ranks where the General of this force was. When she saw her personal retinue of bodyguards swept aside like unruly children by a lowly Rust Blood, she indignantly questioned how such a lowly soldier dare to approach her, Oraora replied the he could not slap the shit out of her without getting closer. To punish his insolence, the Sea Dweller general dueled him. 

This general was not like the other Sea Dwellers that Oraora had killed, she was made of sterner stuff. She was faster, stronger, more durable than her lessers. The battle went on for a full night, right up until the sun started to rise. Seeing this, their fighting intensified, wanting to see the other dead before they were forced to stop. But the uppity little Rust Blood simply wouldn’t die. Over the hours, the Sea Dweller general began to feel respect for such a worthy adversary. It had been many sweeps since she had previously had a fight that was this pleasantly strenuous. Knowing that the battle would come to a close soon, she asks him his name. He gave it as he delivered a final flurry of strikes:

ORAORAORAORAORAORAORAORAORAORAORAORAORAORAORAORAORAORAORAORAORAORAORAORA!!!!!!!!

As the sun rose, and their fighting came to a close, the General ordered that none of her soldiers were to attack Oraora, that he would return to his comrades unharmed. On his journey back to the Last Line of the Sagimino Gap, he noticed that there were many more Sea Dweller bodies than he remembered while he was on his rampage. He discovered the reason why as he came closer to the Last Line. His friends and comrades were emboldened by his charge, seeing their friend single handedly ripping apart Sea Dwellers one after the other lit a fire in their souls and made them fight with a fury that would have made their superiors proud. And they kept fighting until the sun rose. Upon Oraora’s return, he was lifted by them and cheered for as a hero. But their cheers fell silent as the next sunset approached. For with it came the Sea Dwellers. As they came closer, a familiar figure stepped forward ahead of the advance. It was the general, loudly declaring to the defenders that she had started a fight and that she intended to finish it. Once again, Oraora’s comrades cheered as he obliged her request, and sped forth to fight her. This battle too ended in a stalemate.

Night after night, this would happen. The two would do battle until the sun rose, return to their respective sides of the conflict, and would continue it the next night. Until one night, when one of the combatants finally gained the advantage over the other, when Oraora at last lashed out at a crack in the General’s armor that had opened during their fight, and stuck her down. Surprisingly, he did not kill her. He simply demanded that she surrender. The centuries old General, who had been doing battle since before this troll’s ancestor had even pupated, who had been bested by a worthy adversary, who had seen the tenacity with which the Land Dwellers fought, who had gained such respect for this insolent little Burgundy Blood, surrendered. Thus was won the first major victory of the Land Dwellers. They did not just hold their position and keep a portion of land under their control, they depleted the enemy of large amounts of manpower, material, and morale.

Though there would never be an attack upon the Sagimino Gap of this magnitude again, the Land Dwellers were still doomed to defeat.


	6. Nitoma Grumak, Simply One of Many

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A Simple Brinefarmer

While there are countless heroes and warriors of titanic renown who were born of the centuries of war in the Sea Dweller Conflict.... they were all truly rare specimens of their respective castes. It would be remiss of me to not mention those who were not gifted with ungodly strength, earth shattering mind powers, or any other distinction that would set them apart from their peers. Some were just average people who used their abilities as simply another tool. Fixing holes in fishing nets only took minutes when one could spread it out in midair with their telekinesis to immediately see the holes and repair them, an animal could be trained to help with field labor in a matter of days with a mediocre Bronze troll around, even a below average Indigo troll had the skill and diligence to erect the framework for half a new settlement in the course of a single day. Ordinary folk doing ordinary folk things. They had songs, festivals, stories and folktales.... they had culture..... they had lives.

One of these average folk was Nitoma Grumak. A simple girl who lived and worked on a brine farm on an inlet that reached inland for miles. A brine farm, simply put, is a farm that harvests fruit grown from plants similar to mangrove trees on Earth. Not only do these trees produce fruit, they also provide shelter for many different species of fish and other aquatic organisms that dwell in the saltwater between the stilt-like roots of the trees that the trolls cultivated for food. This was a plentiful source of food for many trolls in that area. And considering it’s size, there was a whole town of such farmers around the mouth of the inlet.

She would go out on the boats to float between the trees and pick the ripe, low-hanging fruit when they were in season. When they weren’t, she would go out with nets and spears (wielded with telekinesis) to catch fish and crustaceans and harvest mussels. Whatever that was left over after preserving and storing what the farm needed would be traded and sold in a market town not too much farther inland. She had a capable Moirail who was her right hand ma’am when she went out on her boat, a handsome Matesprit who everyone on the farm could always rely on for looking after their boats and equipment with his tools, and a challenging Kissmesis who provided a healthy rivalry to see who could catch or harvest more product before the season ended. A simple gal with a simple life.... this would all change with the Rising Tide (the name given to the event where the Sea Dwellers first attacked the Surface World). They attacked at high noon on the longest day of the Sweep. Everyone was sound asleep in their recuperacoons when bolts of superheated energy started tearing through the walls of their simple huts.

Those who didn’t die in the initial volley were dazed and confused at first. They ran from their homes with spears and sharp tools in hand to meet a force of armored Sea Dwellers taller than their hives. The residents were swept aside as easily as though they were children in a playground. Nitoma and a few other trolls were able to escape into the water with their boats while the local Standard Guards stationed at the town held the Sea Dwellers at bay. They quickly made it to the inland Market Town later that day and were able to warn the populace of the attack. Luckily, this town was big enough to warrant having a radio that was used for communication with other towns. They soon found that this was not an isolated incident. Reports were coming in from all over the world that trolls were rising from the seas and laying siege to every town, village, and city they found.

It was only a few hours afterwards that the Sea Dwellers caught up with them and attacked the Market Town as well. This time, they were expected. So everyone in the town aside from the radio operators armed themselves and stood beside the Standard Guards to fight, hoping to slow them down enough to give the Inland Cities time to prepare and time for the Jades to evacuate the children. Nitoma wielded her favorite fishing spears with her telekinesis, hoping to do some small amount of damage to the invaders. As they approached, her Kissmesis (who was the only one of her quadrantmates to survive) jokingly boasted that she could kill more of them than Nitoma could.... She lost the bet when she died in the first volley from the Sea Dwellers, whereas Nitoma was able to skewer one of them through their neck with one of her spears. Her feeling of exhilaration at having brought some small semblance of vengeance for her friends died as a laser bolt burned through her chest and into her heart. Thus was One of Many such ordinary folk to become a casualty in the first days of the Sea Dweller Conflict.


	7. Aishen Mordha, the Souls Ripper

She who could rip the souls from the living themselves.

Now THIS was a Burgundy troll to be feared. While most other necromancers had to wait until someone was dead to control their spirits, Aishen could simply reach into the inner being of a person and forcefully remove their soul from their corporeal body.... would you like to hear a story?

Once upon a time a long time ago, before the Rising Tide, a mad Teal Naturalist sought to.... enhance.... certain abilities that trolls had. She thought that she could do this by selectively presenting genetic material to a Mother Grub. Working from this conclusion, she decided it would be prudent to conduct these tests on trolls from the Burgundy caste. Mainly because their short lifespans allowed her Teal lifespan to witness several generations firsthand. The first ability she sought to enhance was necromancy. She would keep an eye on certain trolls who had a particular strength or talent for necromancy, intercept the path their genetic material went on delivery to the Mother Grub, and combine the “favorable” genetic material with that of other similarly “favorable” trolls before they were presented to the Mother Grub. All the other Burgundy Gene Slurry was disposed of. 

Now, if any of this seems especially immoral to you, that would be because it was. It really was. What this troll was doing was eugenics. “Well you’re one to talk! Weren’t you doing the same thing?” You might say. My answer would be “I was gifting these trolls with abilities that they would have not evolved with otherwise. I wasn’t selectively breeding them.” But that didn’t keep me from watching in morbid intrigue. If anyone found out what this Teal Naturalist was attempting, the Jade Bloods would hunt her down and rip her several new and bloody holes. So to say that this Teal Naturalist was quite secretive of her work would be an understatement. Now, a few centuries later, her plans came to fruition. After many generations of selecting the best Necromancers that she could find from around the world, combining their genetic material, slowly refining the resulting trolls abilities, combining -there- genetic material, and repeating this process over and over and over again, she witnessed the pupation of Aishen Mordha. 

And boy I tell you huat.... I might have given the Burgundies the gift of necromancy, but this troll.... it was different with her; It was concentrated. Death emanated from her. She radiated doom as a particularly fragrant Purple troll radiated body odor. Any sane troll would have been shitting themselves from the subconscious pull this troll had on their souls, but this Teal Naturalist was far from sane even before she started this project. What others should have been afraid of, she looked upon with adoration. After Aishen pupated, the Mad Teal set to work on phase two of her plan: actually training Aishen in the art of necromancy. To do this, she stole multiple fragments from the remains of different necromancers from the Temples. So powerful was Aishen, even at her extremely young age, that all the Mad Teal had to do was bring the remains into the same room as Aishen and the spirits would appear. The spirits themselves were mortified, at first, by what the Mad Teal had done, by what she had created. But at Aishen’s request, they taught her all they knew. 

If you are somewhat clever, you might be thinking to yourself “How the hell did this lady fly under the radar for so long when she was doing all of this?”. The short answer is that I helped.

Say what you will about Alternians nowadays, but back then, they cared about their children and the process that brought them into being. So it was only logical that the convoys that held the genetic material of hundreds or even thousands of trolls were escorted to the Mother Grubs under heavy guard. Armored wagons pulled by armored beasts guarded by armed and armored trolls from across the Hemospectrum. Without my intervention, it would have been impossible for her to infiltrate the convoys and meddle with the Burgundy offerings. The same applies to the remains of dead necromancers in the Temples. I helped her acquire the small fragments needed to summon a spirit. I didn’t even do all that much; a distraction here and frozen-in-place guard there. I just created the openings that either the Mad Teal or her agents would use to complete their tasks. But these small (but deadly serious) acts of larceny did not go unnoticed for long. Eventually, Standard Guard Investigators were able to piece together clues and hints as to her general whereabouts by looking at the small traces she left behind. 

What? You think that I held her hand throughout her thefts? I only provided the openings she needed, I didn’t clean up after her. So when the Standard Guard observed the small amounts of soil from the treads of her boots and matched it to a very specific area in a certain region of not-quite-mountainous terrain that was secluded enough and lacking in natural resources that it held no interest to anyone, or traced the average distances between the location of the thefts, or sometimes just good old fashioned witness statements from witnesses such as nearby animals or wondering spirits who noticed her, they connected those small traces (among others) to narrow down where her lab might be. By the time they found the lab, though, Aishen was already 7 Sweeps old. In that time she learned from her ghostly masters much more that just necromancy. She learned of the surface world.

You see, she spent her entire life underground. Aishen lived in the underground facility that the Mad Teal built all her life. That means the only other contact she had with people was the Mad Teal and the necromancer spirits who would tell her tales of the surface. Eventually, these spirits would become her closest friends. And from their stories, she would develop a desperate want to escape to the surface and see the sky. She would not have to wait long. For shortly after she turned 7 sweeps old, the Standard Guard broke through the facility’s entrance and started setting off all of the Mad Teal’s traps. The traps were supposed to buy her enough time to gather her essential research and escape with her ill begotten charge. But over the course of Aishen’s life, she grew to hate the Mad Teal who would never allow her to leave the underground lab, who would conduct invasive and painful tests and experiments on her, who would never tell her why she was doing this or why she was there.

So in that moment, when the Mad Teal was trying to drag Aishen by the arm to the back of the facility to escape, Aishen fought back. She didn’t want to leave behind her ghostly friends, she didn’t want to be with the Mad Teal any longer, but she didn’t have the remains of her friends to help her in that moment, and she was too weak to physically overcome the Mad Teal. So she resorted to one last option, something she didn’t even think would work: she reached into the core of the Mad Teal’s aura with her necromantic powers.... and started tugging. This definitely caught the Mad Teal by surprise (not to mention me). And when Aishen realized that she could get a grasp on the Mad Teal’s soul, she started tugging harder, which sent the Mad Teal into a frenzy. At first she threatened Aishen, telling her to stop or she would hurt her. Then when she was too weak to hurt her, the Mad Teal started bargaining with Aishen, telling her that the Standard Guard would kill Aishen for the abomination she was. Finally, the Mad Teal was so weak that the only thing she could do was quietly sob and beg Aishen for her life. 

Aishen stopped when a Burgundy Guardsman saw what she was doing and (getting over the shock of what he was seeing her do) took hold of her and told her to stop. It was then Aishen relinquished her stranglehold on the Mad Teal’s soul and fell into the Guardsmen’s arms unconscious. Over the next few weeks, Aishen spent every waking moment with a number of Jade Mothers. They would look her over and find that (aside from the surgical scars from the experiments and tests that the Mad Teal conducted on her) she was in remarkably good health. Though as a consequence of growing up with naught but her ghostly companions and a madwomen, she was quite.... socially inept. She was able to improve and recover over time, but first, the Mad Teal had to answer for her crimes. Violating the sanctity of the Gene Slurry and the Mother Grub, manipulating generations of those lower on the Hemospectrum than her for centuries, imprisoning a troll from pupation and causing such repugnant harm unto her through abduction and subsequent experimentation. She had much to answer for.

She was not surprised when the verdict came that she would be sentenced to death at the hands of the Jade Bloods. The Mad Teal was not worried, she expected her mysterious assistant (Me) to bail her out just as they did before. But my curiosity was sated, my interest lost. I saw the result of her aspirations and was sufficiently.... wow’d. The look of surprise on her face as the Rainbow Drinkers started ritually flaying her alive is something that would have stayed with me and kept me awake at night if I were a lesser being who needed to sleep. Anyhow, after Aishen was rested up, sat through the trial and execution of the Mad Teal, and properly integrated with society with the help of the Jade Mothers, she was given to the necromancers to be reared and taught how to properly control her power. While the spirits she subconsciously summoned were excellent teachers, they could only verbally teach her. They couldn’t show her the finer details of necromancy through example.

What set her aside from all of her peers, even the older necromancers, was her aforementioned “Soul Rip” ability. This is something that I expected even less than that technique of Hokala Nolafa. Because of the obvious fact that this ability could only be used on the living, it was extremely difficult to practice this ability safely. Aishen got her practice when she signed up for the Standard Guard when she turned ten Sweeps old. With the added support of her comrades in the Guard, she honed her abilities upon bandits and other such criminals to great effect. Of course, she wouldn’t outright kill them, she would just put a stranglehold on their souls until they were incapacitated. Throughout the first three Sweeps of her career, a personal point of pride she held was that she did not once kill anyone. She never had to resort to taking a life.

Until the Rising Tide, that is. Not long after the ending of Nitoma’s story, Aishen was one of those Guardsmen to first respond to the encroaching Sea- Dwellers in the opening days of the War. And a war this certainly was. You see, there was never a full scale, shame- globes-to-the-wall, outright war on Alternia up until this point. Yes, there would be the odd conflict here and there between squabbling villages or tribes, but it would never evolve past anything more than a few skirmishes before a Lime Negotiator was introduced to the scene. No, what Aishen was witnessing as her SG Convoy arrived at one of the points of first contact was something that would stay with her for the rest of her life. This was no battle, this was no skirmish.... this was a slaughter at the hands of no less than six Sea-Dwellers. An entire Settlement of hundreds of trolls either dead or in chains in the matter of hours. And things only got worse when her position came under fire from the Sea- Dwellers. Aishen immediately went to her go-to trick of taking hold of those souls and gripping them into submission.

It worked for all of three minutes and fourteen seconds. Usually, when she used the Soul Grip ability, the target would stay down and let themselves be taken into custody by the Guards. But as soon as Aishen let go, the Sea Dwellers raised their weapons and proceeded to attack the Guards. Seeing so many of her friends dying so quickly led Aishen to finally let loose with her abilities. If these Invaders weren’t going to surrender even after having their souls touched, then they weren’t going to stop fighting until they died. Which just so happened to be their fate when Aishen forcefully reached into the core of their beings and ripped the souls from their corporeal bodies. In all, it took half a platoon of SG trolls to take on half a dozen Sea-Dwellers. Fortunately, it was confirmed that their fancy shmancy armor didn’t mean anything when this short stack of a troll could just attack their life points directly (so to speak).

It is because of Aishen that the SG were able to acquire so much information about the Sea-Dwellers in those early days of the Rising Tide. They had perfectly working equipment with completely undamaged corpses to study in order to effectively counter the Sea- Dwellers. With this information, the Indigo Mountain Lords were able to learn from their technology and replicate it (though, to a lesser degree). Weapons and armor that would have been impossible to make otherwise was adorned by many of the SG in the latter (and more gruesome) years of the War. Aishen would eventually meet her end several Sweeps later when the Sea-Dwellers had enough of this individual and decided to target her specifically with a focused attack of heavy artillery and overwhelming numbers when her convoy was on its way to another reported Sea-Dweller attack.

The trolls resulting from her genetic contributions to the Mother Grubs would cause a significant spike in the overall strength of necromancy in the Burgundy Caste. This was one of the few saving graces that the Land Dwellers had for the rest of the War and beyond.


End file.
